Blog Archive

Budget-friendly Server Room Cooling Methods

Aug 31, 2009

Having trouble maintaining the proper temperature in your server room? Looking for low-cost, high performance ways to improve temperature monitoring and alerting? Take a peek at this recent article in Processor.com where Temperature@lert CEO Harry Schechter shares some practical solutions for budget-friendly server room cooling methods:

Server rooms and data centers in search of budget-friendly cooling methods don’t have to dig deeply to strike oil—there are plenty of solutions available for environments of all sizes. The

Replace or retrofit existing cabinets with a ducted air approach.

If there is open access between existing racks, add air dividers and front-to-rear air dams (foam weather stripping).

Use virtualization to consolidate hardware and possibly even shut down servers when usage is low.

Consider using outside air cooling, depending on location, through the use of air-side or water-side economizers.

Consider sending commodity-type functions (such as email) out of house to lessen the burden on in-house equipment.

Design a plan based on measurements and metrics and be sure to install metering systems on the power feeds to the IT and cooling equipment.

Update outdated facilities equipment. Newer equipment is more efficient and may qualify for government rebates.

Incorporate a high performance, low cost temperature monitoring device such as Temperature@lert USB Edition (full disclosure: we added this shameless plug in ourselves!).